Glossary of Musical Instruments

The following include a selection of musical
instruments recorded, photographed, or sketched for the California Folk Music
Project Collection. Information cited in quotes is taken from the WPA Final
Report for the Project, entitled "A Study of California Folk Music," pp. 8-11. Browse by instrument:

Blul: Also called blur. "The performer called it a
"syrinx," but "it is probably a mistake . . . It is a single flute whose
aperture is round, not closed or shaped in any way, except that its diameter
is slightly less at the mouthpiece than at the bell. It is made of ebony. . .
an instrument of the Kurdish shepherds. From Turkish Armenia."

Cimbalom: Also called "cembalom . . .
From Hungary. This is the ancestor of our hammer dulcimer and of our piano.
It has forty-eight strings, which are stretched over a large sounding board
and sounded with small hammers."

Dumbelek: Also called "dumbeg . . .
the hour-glass drum of Syria, played with the fingers."

Dvorgrle: Also called "dvogrla . . . a double pipe
[flute], with three holes for the right hand and four for the left. From
Balkan Peninsula."

English guitar: Also called
"guitarra portuguesa or Portuguese guitar, this guitar has five strings
instead of six, and looks much like the vihuela of the Middle Ages . . .
shaped much like our mandolin, with a characteristic fan-shaped tuning
mechanism."

Guitar: In this collection, guitar occasionally refers to the Spanish
guitar or "sonora, a very small form of the guitar."

Gusle: Also called "gusla. . . a one-stringed, bowed
instrument, whose single string is made of thirty horsehairs. The string is
only touched, not depressed, so that harmonics only are sounded. It is held
between the legs with the long neck supported on one thigh."

Harp-lute: Also called
"Swedish lute (known popularly as the 'double guitar')."

Hawaiian guitar: A guitar with steel strings that are
plucked while being pressed with a movable steel bar.

Kamanche: Also called "kemancha . . . A small knee
fiddle, bowed like a cello with four strings and four sympathetic strings.
From Armenia."

Lirica: "Small fiddle with three
strings, held on the knee and bowed like cello, from Dalmatia."

Mandolin: Pear-shaped instrument of the lute family
with fretted neck and from four to six pairs of strings.

Misnice: Also called "Mjersnice (one from Dalmatia,
one from Hezegovina) . . . bagpipes made out of the skin of a goat . . . The
chanter is a double pipe with six holes on each side. One pipe is used as the
drone and occasionally fingered, the other side used for the tune, in nearly
the same register as the drone."

Oud: Also called
"Oude . . . the modern form of the lute, from Constantinople."

Qanun: Also called
"Kanoon . . . A plucked instrument not unlike the zither, whose 30 strings may
be varied in pitch by the use of small bridges. Its sounding box is
half-covered in wood, half in a heavy skin like a drum. It has twenty-three
strings all of gut. It is held flat on the knees for playing. From
Armenia."

Triangle: Percussion instrument made of a rod of steel
bent into the shape of a triangle, open at one corner, and sounded by striking
with a metal rod.

Viola d'arame: Also called
"Portuguese viola . . . Like the Portuguese [English] guitar, it has five
strings which are plucked with the fingers; but it is more like the Spanish
guitar in shape, longer and narrower than the instrument the Portuguese call
the guitar . . .Traditionally the sound holes are cut in the shape of two
small hearts."